


If You're Sick Of Pretending

by LesserDisaster



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesserDisaster/pseuds/LesserDisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis thinks doing a band Secret Santa is the best idea ever, Niall and Harry wouldn't quite agree.<br/>Or Niall and Harry are shopping for their Secret Santa gifts and inadvertently make each other jealous in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You're Sick Of Pretending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [narrywings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/narrywings/gifts).



> I really loved this prompt, hope I did it justice!
> 
> title from _Say When_ by Jukebox The Ghost

"Secret Santa time!" Harry wasn't sure which thing woke him up, Louis screaming at him, or getting hit in the face with a Santa hat.

"What the hell? Leave me alone." He attempted to roll back over, but Louis was not having any of that. He climbed into the bunk, sitting on top of Harry.

"Secret Santa! Pick a name from the hat!" He practically screamed it at him, and honestly, after more than four years in a band with Louis, Harry should be used to it, but someone yelling right in your face is never a good way to wake up.

"What time is it?"

"That doesn't matter. Pick one!" He shoved the hat in Harry's face again.

"Jesus, okay. Who are the options in here anyway?"

"Just the five of us."

After digging around in the hat for a while. (He wasn’t convinced Louis wasn’t making sure he was going to get a certain name) Harry couldn't decide if he was disappointed or relieved when he pulled out a little piece of paper with Niall's name on it. He was still working out his feelings and now he had to find the perfect gift to prove it.

"You didn't get yourself, did you?"

"No." Harry mumbled as he rolled back over to get back to sleep.

"Okay, good, see you in the morning."

Louis pulled the curtain closed on the bunk and ran off before Harry could realize what he just said.

"In the morning? Lou! What time is it?"

"I dunno. It’s technically morning though. I think."

Harry did not have the energy to argue about it now, but he was definitely going to get back at him in the morning. Or maybe not, judging by the groan from Louis followed by ‘What the fuck Niall!’ and ‘Wake me up like that again and I’ll punch you in the face.’

* * *

If you asked Niall, getting Harry as his Secret Santa was infinitely worse than being woken up by Louis jumping on him. It was either find some kind of boring ‘safe’ gift, or just put all your cards on the table and give him something romantic that left no doubt as to his feelings. So his first plan, after panicking over it for a while, was to call Louis. He had to have some idea what to get Harry, right?

"Why are you so obsessed with getting the right thing? You can get him a candy bar and he'd think it was the best present ever."

"I want it to be more meaningful than that." Louis was very obviously not understanding how important this was to Niall.

"Well, what did you get him last year?"

"I don’t even remember, so it obviously wasn’t very important."

"Okay, so by meaningful, you mean something you’ll still remember by next year? Is that the only qualification because I'm not really getting what you mean."

"What do you get someone as a way to tell them you kind of like them as more than a friend."

"Buy him a 'best boyfriend ever' mug and see if he gets it."

Niall scoffed at that. "He'll probably just think I did it last minute and just grabbed whatever was left."

"Just tell him then, and once you're actually boyfriends you can find some dumb couples gift."

"I'm not going to tell him this close to Christmas! It'll ruin it if he doesn't feel the same."

"This is Harry we're talking about. He couldn't be mean to you if he tried. He'll say he's sorry, but he doesn't feel the same. He'll probably still kiss you anyway to make you feel better. Just pretend to cry, he'll definitely kiss you then."

"Thanks for the advice Louis, gonna go try to find someone who will actually be helpful."

"Excuse you, I am very helpful."

"Maybe Liam will have a better idea."

"I doubt it, but go ahead. I'm not giving you any more advice since you rejected everything I said already."

"You told me to just kiss him anyway, I fail to see how that helps."

"No, I told you to let him kiss you, totally different thing. But I'm pretty sure he likes you too."

"If he liked me in that way, I'd know already. He is the worst secret keeper."

“Not when it’s something important.”

“So rather than kiss him, I’m supposed to just spill everything and hope he says it back?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Sure, sounds like a great idea.” Niall just rolled his eyes, Louis’ heart was in the right place, he just definitely didn’t know how to go about making his ideas actually work.

“My ideas _are_ great Niall, your little brain just can’t process them, that’s why you’re against everything I say.”

Niall’s response was to just turn off his phone. He knew Louis was just teasing, but he couldn’t really deal with it at the moment.

* * *

It wasn’t until he came across pictures of Harry somewhere in Hollywood, helping whichever family he was apparently trying to be adopted by, pick out Christmas trees, that he realized how much he did want to tell Harry how he felt. He even wanted to do basic things like pick out a tree with him, he just wasn’t sure he was brave enough to admit all of that, which is why he found himself on Liam’s doorstep a week before Christmas.

"Harry isn’t here, is he?"

"Isn’t he still in L.A.? Or maybe not, I have no idea, I don’t keep up with his schedule. Did you not want to see him?" Liam seemed a bit taken aback by that question being Niall’s greeting.

"Not when I need your advice on what to get him."

“I’m not sure I’m much help. Sophia picked out the stuff I got my sisters.”

“Is she here? I’m desperate right now.”

“Is that Niall? I thought I heard the door.” 

Liam turned back to yell to her over his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m trying to get him to leave!”

“Don’t do that. Let him in!” Sophia called back from down the hall.

“Oh look, at least someone’s being nice to me tonight. Hello there favorite person in the world.” Sophia just rolled her eyes as she hugged Niall.

“I think that means you need something from me.”

“How dare you, I’m not allowed to be happy to see you?” 

“Of course you are, but I heard you talking about presents, so I assumed you want my help with something. I had to give Liam ideas for every single family member, I don’t know how he survived without me.” She was obviously joking, but after knowing Liam for as long as he had, Niall knew she wasn’t actually far from the truth.

“This is Liam we’re talking about, he needs help with everything.”

“Hey! I do not.” 

She just turned and narrowed her eyes at him, “When was the last time you didn’t ask my opinion about something?”

“Well, usually it’s just clothes and…” He trailed off, knowing he wasn’t going to win this argument. “Anyway, we’re supposed to be talking about Niall now, not me.”

“But it’s so fun to tease you.” She patted his shoulder, and turned to Niall. “Have any ideas?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, that’s not much of a start.”

“That’s why I’m here! At point I’m about to just buy a card with a pun on it and stick a gift card in it.”

“That is a horrible idea.” Liam interjected.

Niall narrowed his eyes at him. “Yes, thank you Liam, that really helps right now. I guess I need to just go do some window shopping and hopefully see something that I think he’ll like.”

“We’ll go along and help.”

“Soph… I thought it was just gonna be us tonight.” Liam whined.

“Well things come up sometimes, and it’s Christmastime, we should be spending time with our friends too. Now get your coat so we can go.”

As soon as Liam was out of hearing distance, Niall leaned over to Sophia. “You have him on a very short leash.”

“Well he needs it.” She defended.

“No, I mean, he does, I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing.”

“Good.”

Niall would never admit it, but he was just the tiniest bit intimidated by her. He really liked her as a friend, but it would be too much for him if he was actually dating her.

“Okay, I’m ready, let’s go get this over with.”

Niall gasped and put on his best offended face. “How dare you, I’m your friend and this is how you treat me?” He raised his eyebrows at Liam. “Did I stop some ‘fun times’ with the missus?”

“Shut up.” Liam shot back at him.

"Let's go boys, we don't have all day." Sophia said, shaking the keys in her hand. "Get moving!"

* * *

"You do realize Harry sucks at almost every sport, right? What are we going to find here?" Niall couldn’t believe their first stop was the sports section of the store. They were really going to find something for Harry here?

"He's an old man on the inside, like you, and plays golf. Buy him some golf equipment or a personalized golf bag or something."

"I think he already has one of those. And besides, this isn't very meaningful. Merry Christmas, here's some golf balls. Come on."

“I don’t see you coming up with better ideas.”

Niall just sighed, “I don’t know, let’s walk around a bit more, maybe I’ll see something that catches my eye.”

“Look, there’s a huge rack of scarves over there, be boring and get one for him.”

Liam reached over and grabbed one, wrapping it around Niall’s head. “Hmm, you don’t really have long enough hair for it, but maybe you could start a new trend.”

Niall put on his best pout and tried out his imitation of Harry. “Hey, I’m Harry and I think puns are the highest form of humor and I can barely walk two steps without falling over.”

Liam just started laughing at him. “You might have the accent down but you don’t have the look at all. You look like Ben Stiller in that movie with the models.”

“I look like Zoolander? That’s not really a compliment.”

“I didn’t say it was. You look like an idiot. Possibly worse than Harry when he wears those.”

“Ouch, Liam, don’t say things like that, you hurt my feelings.”

“I did not. Now where did Soph go? I thought she was-”

“Here you go Niall, get this for him.” She shoved something into Niall’s hands.

“This is… a phone case? Why would I get this for him?”

“You all have more than enough money to buy all the things you want. So get him something more personal. You can put a picture in here, so put a picture of the two of you in it and give it to him, with a card or something where you tell him how much he means to you or something.”

“That is… actually a good idea. Might get something different than a phone case, I think he has about a million, but I think I’ll get something kinda similar. Maybe just a frame or something to put a picture in. The main part will be finally just telling him how I feel.”

Liam’s face lit up when he realized Niall had actually found something. “Does that mean we’re done, can we leave now?”

“I guess so. You gonna be okay now? Can I take this puppy home now before he loses it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll figure it out. You two get going.”

* * *

To be fair, Harry hadn’t known about Niall hanging out with Liam and Sophia when he told Lou he’d meet her for lunch. If he’d seen the pictures before that, he’d probably just be sitting at his house, pouting at his laptop screen, as he looked over every detail of the pictures. Even now, he wasn’t doing a very good job of entertaining Lux because he couldn’t stop staring at his phone, coming up with ways to kill Niall or Liam, or both. So he didn't pay attention to Lou’s ‘Go on then’ until two little hands reached up and pulled his phone away from him.

“Hey! That’s not very nice”

“Mummy said to!”

“That’s how you get away with everything, right? ‘Mummy told me’ ‘Daddy said I could’ and everyone goes with it cause you’re cute.”

“It’s a picture of Niall and Liam, that’s what kept you so occupied? I thought you were doing some fuckin’ Flappy Bird or some other dumb game with the way you were staring a hole in your phone.”

Lux gasped and shook her finger at Lou.“That’s bad mummy!”

“Yes yes, I know dear, I’ll add a few pounds to the naughty jar when we get home.”

Harry couldn’t keep his laughter in. “You know, the point of those jars is to stop you from saying those things in front of her, not to have uni paid off before she turns five.”

“Oh shut it, you try having a kid and then magically stop. You probably would though, say things like ‘gee whiz’ so your fifty babies won’t ever swear at all.”

“Pretty sure whoever I have kids with won’t want fifty.”

“Niall will go along with however many you want. He’s the reason you tried to glare a hole through this right?” she asked, shaking his phone at him. “Or Liam? Is there some three-way thing going on here? Not judging or anything, do whatever you want, I mean-”

“No, it’s Niall.” He cut her off because he did not need a discussion to start over a hypothetical threesome with Liam and Sophia.

“Well, what are you doing here when you could be hanging out with him? Since you obviously want to.” She said, motioning at the phone.

“I want to be here, I swear.”

“Look at your sandwich, you’ve had one bite in twenty minutes. Just go ask him to meet you somewhere and offer him a blowjob.”

“Lou!” Harry had to at least pretend to be offended, keep up some semblance of not being desperate.

“I’m just sayin’. Now go act out your favorite scene from Love Actually with him.”

“Do you really think standing outside his door, with signs telling him how I feel, will work?”

“Jesus Christ, just go. Let me know if it works out, but without details please.”

Harry almost knocked his chair over jumping up to leave.

“Sorry I’m leaving so soon. Be good for Santa.” He said dropping a kiss on Lux’s head and giving Lou a quick hug.

“You’re the best, sorry for being a shit friend and ruining lunch.”

“You didn’t ruin it, it’s fine. Kind of fun seeing you so flustered over a dumb picture. So here’s your phone back, you can look at that picture as much as you want now, and be sure to use protection if it gets to that point. The world isn’t ready for any Horan-Styles babies yet.”

He didn’t even dignify that with a response, just focused on getting out of the restaurant as soon as possible to text Niall.

**Can you come over? We need to talk.**

**Not the best conversation starter. U breaking up with me? Be there in 15?**

**Definitely not breaking up, don’t worry. See you then.**

* * *

Harry opened the door and immediately handed Niall a cup of tea, and didn’t look mad, so Niall thought it was a good sign, until Harry opened his mouth.

“I see you were with Liam and Sophia a few days ago.” Ambushing Niall as soon as he walked in the door probably wasn’t the best way to get a confession out of him, but Harry couldn’t stop himself.

“Yeah, I was finishing my Christmas shopping, why does it matter who I did it with?” Niall had no clue where this was coming from, why would Harry be mad about this? They hang out with the rest of the band individually all the time.

“Seemed to be having a lot of fun with them.” Harry spit out, not really sure himself why he was so angry all of a sudden. He and Niall weren’t even a thing, so why did he almost feel like Niall was cheating on him.

“Sophia was helping me pick out stuff cause you know how useless Liam is when it comes to things like that. Not that you’d know, you spend most of your time not on tour, in L.A. holding babies and trying to get adopted into one of the hundreds of families so randomly seem to know. So sorry I didn’t ask for your help.”

“I’ve been home for almost a week now.”

“How was I supposed to know? Your dumb cryptic tweets are supposed to tell me that?”

“My tweets aren’t dumb!”

“Oh yeah, because a picture of you next to a tree, captioned with “Harry Christmas” isn’t dumb at all.”

“Hey, let’s stop making fun of my tweets.”

Niall just threw up his hands at this because what did Harry even want from him.

“What do you want to talk about then? The fact that you’re jealous of me doing something with Liam?”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Right. It’s just a perfectly normal thing to be mad at someone for shopping with their friends. If that’s the case, I should be mad at you for going to a Christmas tree farm with some random people I don’t even know.”

“That’s not even the same! And-” Harry cut off mid sentence and just stared at Niall. “How did you even know I did that? Did you look up creeper pap pictures of me?”

“No, I just saw some people posted them on Twitter.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say _you_ were jealous of _me_.”

Niall flailed out with his hands, trying to come up with a response, forgetting he was holding a cup of tea until it poured all over the chair, and the scarf draped over the arm.

“Niall!” Harry gasped out as he ran over to grab it. Niall was fairly convinced the he was about to cry.

“Shit, I am so sorry. I didn’t even remember I had tea. I can get you a new one?”

“No, no it’s fine. But maybe you should leave before you figure out you really are jealous and ruin something else.”

“Oh my god, seriously? I’m sorry! I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“Well, that doesn’t really matter right now.”

“Fine. I’m leaving.” He made sure to slam the door as he walked out. “Merry fucking Christmas to you too!”

* * *

Niall was about to start the car again and just drive away when he pulled up to Louis’ place Christmas afternoon. After the horrible fight the week before, the last thing he wanted to do was face Harry again. He was about to put the key back in the ignition when Zayn showed up, so he couldn’t really leave now without it being weird.

It wasn’t until they were inside, taking off their coats that he noticed Zayn was empty handed. “Where’s your Secret Santa gift?” He was confused because it wasn’t like him to just forget the actual point of the day.

He just stared at Niall blankly, “What are you talking about?”

“The Secret Santa that Louis did? Did you forget?”

Laughter was not the response Niall was expecting from that question.

“What’s so funny? Am I losing my mind now?” He was quickly going to lose his patience, he was already stressed enough about things with Harry, he didn’t need this too.

“Calm down, it’s just Lou doing his usual meddling. Secret Santa was just you and Harry.”

To say Niall was floored would be an understatement. “What? Why would he do that?”

“Ask him yourself.”

Niall walked into the kitchen to find Louis sprawled across a chair, pretending to be busy on his phone, and it was very obvious he’d just thrown himself there from listening at the doorway.

“What was the point of doing this to me and Harry?”

“To make you admit your feelings.”

“Would’ve been nice to know that a few days ago.” He grumbled.

“What happened?”

“We had a fight and kind of yelled some not-so-true things at each other. At least I didn’t mean it all, he probably _did_ mean everything he said.” He sat down and laid his head on the table. “This is going to be the worst Christmas ever.”

Louis reached over absently and patted his shoulder. “There there Niall, it’ll be fine.”

“It will not, and it’s all your fault!” He didn’t know where this anger came from, but he probably ruined his chances with Harry the day before, and technically it was Louis’ fault since he came up with the dumb Secret Santa idea in the first place. 

“I was trying to get you to admit your feelings for each other! I didn’t know it would all go to shit.” Louis slowly started backing away because being on the receiving end of Niall’s anger was not on his to-do list. Thankfully he was saved by the door opening and an immediate thump on the ground.

“It’s Christmas Liam!”

“I realize that, can you please let me up?”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

Harry stood up and reached his arms out towards the other three. “Group hug time boys, it’s Christmas! And happy birthday Lou, since I didn’t get to tell you in person yesterday.”

“Doesn’t count now Haz, it’s a day late.”

“Shut up.”

Niall was ready to make a run for it once they broke apart, but Harry grabbed his hand before he could get too far.

“Um, could we talk?”

“I guess.”

“Privately.” Harry glared over Niall’s shoulder at Louis.

“Alright lads, let’s give the lovebirds some privacy.”

Once they were alone, Harry pulled Niall down on the sofa next to him.

“First of all, I want to apologize for everything I said last night. I was jealous, and I was mean and you didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.” Harry looked so earnest and sad that even if Niall hadn’t been planning to forgive him, he would have in an instant.

“I’m sorry for ruining your scarf and making you cry about it. I think they’re kind of dumb, but I wouldn’t do that on purpose. And I’m sorry about everything else too. I think we were both jealous and I don’t like that I never know where you are unless I find pictures some creep took of you at an airport.”

“I didn’t cry about that scarf, so stop thinking I did. But moving on, If we were dating, you’d be the first to know where I was going. And hopefully you’d be coming along with me sometimes.”

“Would you introduce me to Zach Braff?!”

“Oh shut up.”

Niall opened his mouth to reply, only to be cut off by the sound of bells right above their heads. They looked up to see Louis standing there with mistletoe in his hands.

“Can you kiss and make up now? Are you done with all this pretending to not like each other bullshit?”

Harry leaned in to give Niall a quick peck, just to get Louis to leave them alone.

“That does not count! Now I’m going to leave so I don’t have to see it, but you need to kiss better than that.”

“Yeah Harry, that doesn’t even count.”

“I’ll show you one that counts.” As soon as their lips met again, Harry immediately regretted every second he spent being jealous of Niall spending time with other people.

Niall pulled away with a laugh, making Harry frown.

“Hey, that’s mean. I’m not that bad of a kisser, am I?”

“No, I’m not laughing at you, or I guess I kind of am, I just- I can’t believe I’m pretty much in love with someone who almost cried over getting tea on their Louis Vuitton scarf.”

“It was Alexander McQueen, thank you very much, and you are never going to get over that are you?”

“Oh I’m gonna tell this story forever, it will be passed down through every generation.”

“I hate you!”

“You do not, it’s physically impossible for you to hate anything I do.”

“We’ll see about that.”

* * *

And just maybe, a couple years later, when the story is followed by a chorus of ‘Daddy we’ve heard this story a million times!” Harry will finally admit that he doesn’t hate it.


End file.
